


Bad Ideas

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-10
Updated: 2002-02-10
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Prequel toThe Company of Women,LessonsandDowntime.





	1. Bad Ideas

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

   


 

**Bad Ideas**

**by: Allison**

**Character(s):** Josh, CJ  
**Pairing(s):** Josh/CJ  
**Category(s):** General  
**Rating:** YTEEN  
**Summary:** Prequel to The Company of Women, Lessons and Downtime 

New Hampshire  
1998

He slumped further down in his seat. He actually didn't think he could slump any further. It might not be humanly possible.

Things were - not good. If he had to bet, he'd say they were going to come in second. Not just in one state, but across the board. Trouble was, in the primary second didn't mean squat. He was pretty sure Hoynes wouldn't come knocking for Jed Bartlet to be his vice-president, and he was also pretty sure that Jed Bartlet wouldn't be lining up to be anybody's second. So that was it.

And the trouble was, he didn't even know who to blame. For once he didn't think he'd done anything stupid. Certainly Sam hadn't done anything stupid. Leo McGarry - well, Josh had known him for a long time, long enough to know that Leo did not make political mistakes. Governor Bartlet's best friend and staunchest defender was probably also the most savvy of his advisors. Not to mention that secretary of his - what was her name? Margaret - keeping Leo and everybody else in line. Josh had learned from his first run-in with the tall redhead not to mess with her. There was the other new guy - the one the Governor kept calling by Josh's name - Toby Ziegler. Surly but smart. Josh had heard the stories of how Leo had fired everyone on the campaign staff except Toby after a particularly sensitive issue about - milk? Something like that? Toby might be rough around the edges but his advice was sound. And that woman he'd brought - well. Josh wasn't used to looking up to women (physically speaking) and the six-foot-tall Californian had scared the hell out of him at first. Call him sexist, but he'd gotten comfortable with the good-old-boys atmosphere of the campaign before Toby flew off to the West Coast and brought home a Berkeley amazon who'd worked in Hollywood. That was, until he'd talked to her after that speech to the Catholic League.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He was sitting, not surprisingly, slumped in his chair in the hotel bar. Steps behind him alerted him to his company, and radar told him that the person behind him was very tall. Rather than turning around he leaned over backwards. "Hi there," he said, trying to hide the fact that he really didn't want to talk to her.

"Hi." Either not noticing or, more likely, ignoring his tone, CJ Cregg slid into the chair across from his. "What'd you think?"

He gave a resigned sigh. Looked like she was here to stay. "You were right."

"That wasn't what I meant."

He looked at her for a moment. No, it looked like she really hadn't come to gloat. Interesting. "Oh. It went well. Is that what you meant?"

"Yes." She settled back in her chair. "You think we made an impact?"

He raised an eyebrow. "With the Catholic League? The first candidate since Kennedy? Yeah, I think we made an impact."

She shrugged. "Okay."

There was a long silence. He studied her unabashedly during the pause. For the first time he took the trouble to notice the fact that her clothes hung loosely on her - a sure sign that she'd recently lost a lot of weight - and that her collarbones and upper ribs showed prominently through the skin at the opening of her shirt. She didn't look sickly thin, but it was plain that she was rather underweight for her height. He took note of the circles under her bright eyes, and was surprised to see a pained expression on her face. Call him slow, unobservant, sexist, whatever, but it truly had not occurred to him before that it might have been difficult for her to join their club. He wondered whether she still felt like an outsider.

"You don't trust me, do you?" she asked suddenly as if she'd read his mind.

"That was just eerie," he commented before he could stop himself.

CJ frowned. "You were just thinking about how you don't trust me?"

"No!" he corrected hastily. Only honesty was going to save him here. "I was just thinking about how - well, I've never really wondered whether it was hard for you."

CJ thought for a second, obviously deciding whether to answer his question. She must have decided that he was okay. "Harder every second," she said truthfully.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She looked at him oddly. "I wasn't looking for pity."

"I wasn't offering it," he said. "I was apologizing. I'm sure I haven't helped."

She eyed him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay."

They were silent together for a while.

"CJ?" he asked finally.

She looked up from the floor tile she'd been studying. "Yeah?"

He met her eyes across the table. "Do you think we have a shot?"

She looked back at him frankly. "Well, it's not going to be like   
shooting fish in a barrel."

"I figured that."

"Our fish are more like in the Mississippi."

He nodded, considering. "You think we need bigger guns?"

"I think we need a dam."

Hmm. He raised his glass to her. "I think I see. Stop taking pot shots -"

"- and narrow the field. Yeah."

"So pick a platform?"

She nodded. "We're all over the place."

"Right."

There was another long silence, but they were getting less uncomfortable. He smiled at her across the table. "So, what does CJ stand for?"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Yeah, CJ'd turned out to be okay. And she knew how to handle the media, which was more than he could say for himself.

He heard a now-familiar step behind him, this time coupled with a familiar gentle perfume. "Hey," he said without looking up.

"Hey." She gracefully folded her long frame into a chair beside his. "What's up?"

"We're going to come in second," he said flatly.

She understood perfectly the tenuous connection between her question and his response. His entire body radiated slump. "No, we're not," she replied, raking a hand through her hair. She'd only recently straightened it again - Margaret swore it looked better this way - and she still wasn't used to the length of it falling in her eyes.

He looked up. "We're not?"

"Nope." She pulled her glasses off and hung them casually from the front of her shirt. "We're going to win."

He eyed her suspiciously. "You're crazed."

"I'm not."

"Then how -"

"Because we're going to pull from behind Hoynes at the last minute."

"Your Ouija board tell you that?"

She grinned. "No, Mrs. Bartlet did."

"So it was her Ouija board."

"Essentially."

They laughed. He was dimly aware that she'd managed to perk him up - which was probably her intention, but he didn't even care. She reached over and ruffled his hair and he looked up at her, surprised. They'd become better friends in the past few weeks, but the sudden gesture of affection was nonetheless unexpected. She grinned and he couldn't help grinning back. He'd learned that CJ was like that. She got to her feet and held out a hand. "Come on, you look like a man who needs a drink." 

His brow wrinkled doubtfully. "I'm a lightweight." 

"I should have guessed," she said, still laughing. "Come on. I'll keep an eye on you." 

He smiled and took her hand. 


	2. Bad Ideas 2

 

**Bad Ideas**

**by: Allison**

**Character(s):** Josh, CJ  
**Pairing(s):** Josh/CJ  
**Category(s):** General  
**Rating:** YTEEN  
**Summary:** Prequel to "The Company of Women", "Lessons" and "Downtime"  
**Author's Note:** Also, I could be wrong, but for purposes of this story I'm assuming Mandy and Josh broke up before or very early in the campaign. 

* * *

They held hands all the way down the street to the bar, which would have seemed odd if they'd thought about it, which they didn't. It was just what both of them needed. They faced each other over a corner table, raising identical scotches and wearing fairly identical weary smiles.

"How'd the press react to the polling numbers?" he asked after downing half his scotch.

CJ shrugged and calmly pounded hers back all at once. She coughed and pointed to the glass. "Not bad."

"The scotch or the press?"

"The scotch." She winced. "The press was - bad."

"They think we're going to lose?"

"They think we're going to lose." She picked up his now-empty glass. "You okay for another?"

"Why not?"

By the time she returned the first drink had reached his head and was beginning to burn pleasantly in his stomach. "What kind is this?" he asked, accepting the second glass from her.

She eyed him critically. "Do you know anything at all about scotch?"

"No."

"It's Glenlivet."

"That's good, right?"

"That's very good." She drank this one more slowly, taking only about a third of it at once. "The press think we're getting roasted on budget reform."

"Are we even talking about budget reform?" For a second there he really wasn't sure.

"Hardly." She tapped idly on the table. "They also think..."

He frowned over his glass. "What?"

She spread her hands in that nervous habit she had, the gesture that said "I'm about to tell you something I don't want to tell you and you don't want to hear." "They think the campaign is too macho."

"Macho?" He really tried not to sound mocking there, but the scotch wasn't helping. "Man's wife is a doctor. He has three daughters. We have you. We have Mandy. Hell, Margaret herself could take the whole press corps without throwing a punch."

"Yeah, but Margaret's an assistant, Mrs. Bartlet isn't with us all the time, and the girls never are. And anybody with eyes can tell Mandy's not in the loop. Working on the campaign there's really just me."

"Well, there's you." Drinking really did not improve his communication skills.

This could not be good. She had to pound the rest of her scotch before she could respond. "They don't think I help."

"What?"

"The press, they don't think I help."

"They don't think you help on the campaign? Who do they think tells them everything they know?"

"No." She gripped her glass in both hands and studied it intently. "They don't think I'm feminine enough to help the image."

"What?" People turned to stare at him. He waved. "Hi." Turning back to CJ he whispered, "What the hell are they thinking?"

"Josh -"

"No, I mean - yes, you're tall, but that doesn't -"

"Josh..." Now she was starting to laugh. But only a little.

"No, really." He set down his empty glass and reached over to take both her hands across the table. "If they want more feminine than you, then they want us to hire a social director who wears a lot of pink blouses and pearls, okay? The only reason anyone would say you weren't changing the 'macho' image of the campaign is because you're smart and you're hard and you fit right in with all of us Ivy League macho jerks. It sure as hell isn't because you're not beautiful, because you *are*."

"Josh..." She looked in actual danger of tearing up. That scared him. He had never seen her cry, not on their worst days. He tugged on her hands and she obeyed silently, slipping around the table to his side. He pulled her down onto the bench beside him and hugged her tight. "Thank you," she said quietly.

"You're welcome, Claudia Jean," he replied, stroking her hair.

"Have I mentioned that no one ever calls me that?" she asked from his shoulder. She was beginning to sound like herself again.

He grinned. "Then I guess I'll save it for special moments."

She shook her head, but he could tell she was laughing. He pulled back from her, trying hard not to think about how good it felt just to be held like that. "Come on, we both need some sleep."

As they walked each other back to the hotel, his arm resting loosely around CJ's waist, he considered the bizarre course of their relationship. Having that hideous breakup with Mandy hadn't improved his general attitude toward women, but he was fairly sure that even before her he'd never been friends with a woman of his own age the way he was with CJ. Even just walking like this with her felt so comfortable and completely right. He pulled her just a little closer, enjoying the feel of her warmth against his side.

At the door to her hotel room they paused while she fumbled with the key card, then she flashed him a brilliant smile and invited him in. "So I can make sure you're not drunk," she said.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm drunk," he replied cheerfully, entering the room and throwing his coat over a chair. "Don't worry, I won't let it go to my head."

CJ cracked up. He laughed right along with her, settling himself on the end of the bed. "Okay, maybe I'm already there."

She reached over and ruffled his hair in a now-familiar gesture. "You know what you need?"

"Coffee?"

"You need somebody to take care of you."

"That's what you were supposed to be doing."

She threw her hands up. "It's a full-time job, sweetheart. We may need to hire someone."

He patted the bed beside him and she sat down, folding her legs up under her. "When we win I'll think about it."

"When we win," she mused, kicking off her shoes. "Think we'll be going to Washington?"

"You and me? Definitely." He reached over and started rubbing her back, slowly and gently. "I've decided that you're right. We're going to get past this, then we'll win, then my friend and yours Jed is going to decide he can't possibly be the President without us. You'll see."

She sighed. "Our fish are still in the Mississippi, Josh."

"Yeah, I know." He brought his hand around to cradle the side of her face. "But Hoynes's are in the Mediterranean. He just doesn't know it yet."

She laughed and her eyes wrinkled up, and some portion of his alcohol-addled brain took over that made him lean forward and capture her lips with his. She started in surprise, then leaned into him, kissing him back and wrapping one arm around his shoulders. She needed the other one to keep from falling off the bed. He had no such compunctions, letting her support both of them and slipping both his arms tightly behind her back. It was a long kiss. He couldn't tell whether it was alcohol, lack of oxygen, or CJ that was making him feel lightheaded, and he didn't much care. She tasted, as he suspected he did, of scotch and that was oddly sexy to him. When they finally broke apart they hugged tightly, almost desperately, without looking at each other. He buried his face in her neck and pressed a kiss to the smooth skin there before pulling back and meeting her eyes. He brushed her hair back from her face and smiled ruefully. "We probably shouldn't do that again."

She shook her head. "That would probably be a colossally bad idea."

He nodded. He continued to stroke the side of her face lovingly. "We're better as friends."

It was, he thought, no less than a miracle. Her eyes sparkled and she gave him another one of those dazzling smiles. "You're right, we are." And that was enough. They'd been lonely (not to mention drunk), they'd turned to each other, and it hadn't changed a thing. He hugged her again, cradling her against him. Well, maybe one thing had changed. Any tension that had ever existed in their physical relationship was gone now. He found it suddenly very easy to touch her, to hold her, and not worry that she would push him away. That was different.

He kissed her temple and said quietly, "I'm going to go get some sleep."

She nodded and disentangled herself from him. "Good-night, Joshua."

"Good-night, love."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He'd been quite sure that nothing would be awkward between them the next morning, but he was relieved to find that he'd been right. He walked into the campaign headquarters - in complete turmoil in preparation for their flight to Charleston - their eyes had locked, she'd smiled, and that was it. He squeezed her arm as he walked past her, and she called, "Joshua!"

He turned, ignoring the surprise on Sam's face at her use of his full name. "Claudia?"

She didn't even bother to scowl at him. "There's a blonde girl in your office. Keep her."

He followed her line of vision. "There's a blonde girl answering my phone."

"I know." She tapped him on the shoulder with a rolled-up newspaper. "Keep her. I like her."

He shrugged. "Whatever you say." They shared another intimate smile and he headed for his office, ignoring Sam's open mouth.


End file.
